


Prodigal Father

by t0talcha0s



Category: BioShock
Genre: Character Study, Conversations about humanity, canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-10 06:56:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11686398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/t0talcha0s/pseuds/t0talcha0s
Summary: Subject Delta was called many things: a man without a face, a tin can, it was well understood that he was a walking suit. A reanimated cage of metal and rust.





	Prodigal Father

**Author's Note:**

> Prodigal daughter like prodigal father amirite

The worst thing, Delta thought, about being a walking diving suit, was that he couldn't feel the suit. He knew the suit was there, it was his exoskeleton, his silhouette. The gloves on his hands were thick and strong, and all the metal ought to weigh down on his shoulders but it didn't, and it was a constant reminder to Delta that he wasn't human anymore. Not that he remembered what it was like to be human, he occasionally doubted he ever was. 

Since his revival he was surrounded with the assumption that he had been a human man, they gave him a name and they called him a man but "Johnny Topside" felt empty none of that was who he was anymore. He didn't long for the surface, he barely remembered it. If he were a man wouldn't he have skin, wouldn't he feel things again. Everything that surrounded him was metal and leather and plastics and the only time he really felt anything anymore was when he bypassed all of that and shoved a syringe into the aperture on his wrist. That was very human, that was pain and fire and blood, those were the tears humanity wept, that was the pain humanity felt in Rapture. 

In Dionysus Park Stanley Poole has the gall to remind him of the humanity he held, to shove old grudges in delta's face and make him remember things he was unsure were even true. It didn't hurt, not like it should, but it was cruel and pathetic nonetheless. He couldn't feel what he knew he should at those revelations, at betrayal and the knowledge of his newfound companion being his captor. He felt the same thing in those moments that he always did, a pull to Eleanor, the tether stretching across Rapture, strangling his heart and pulling him down further to Persephone. 

And Eleanor, his attachment was biological but not in the manner of conventional fatherhood. He loved her but he was unable to discern if the love came from true emotion or the knowledge in the back of his mind that if he stepped too far away from her or hurt her he too would die. "Love," she assured him "is just a chemical, just chemistry, we give it meaning by choice." He wondered who she was attempting to reassure in those moments. 

She struggled under the weight of holding his hand, told her what he meant to her and what good he was and how utterly human it all felt. Delta was struck with wonder as he thought of how she would fit into his past, if it were his past. He was a man without a face and without memories but so much meaning to so many. To him it was passive outside of biology, it was just the way things were, but others pressed so much meaning into the clay of his suit. 

The worst thing, delta thought, was that he could not connect with these people. Sofia Lamb's hatred for him felt pointed in the way a magnifying glass is pointed, it was not about him. It was about all of the threats and insecurities she faced, he was not an enemy to his regime but the men who built his suit were. Eleanor as well, his connection to her was tenuous and artificial but it was all she had ever needed to know. He was not a father to her but he represented the protection a father could wage from a dictatorial mother. It was never about him, Johnny topside or whoever he was, it was about the suit.

He wondered if in this his suit was more a person then he was anymore, and he wondered if he should even bother to make the distinction between him and his exoskeleton. What good would that division do? It wasn't about him anymore anyway. 

Eleanor kneeled above his faceplate, covered in cloth and metal and halfway to being what he was, perhaps this was fatherhood. She was speaking, something about dreams and family and rebirth, and Delta knew that he would not make it to the end of this speech. The worst thing about it was that he could not tell her anything in return. He could not tell her that it was all nothing, that this suit was a disguise for a man she did not know and for a situation neither of them could fully comprehend and how it was just metal and fabric and grime and plastic. 

His hand was too heavy to lift to her and his shoulders were stiff with his final moments, this is the fatigue he had always expected, this is as death was to him. Eleanor's tears graced his faceplate and this was the person he could not be anymore. 

Then it was feeling: bright, powerful, human feeling as Eleanor sunk her needle into what was once a man. Delta was happy for the reminder as he faded, and it was better to know that he was something then to be condemned to die as a diving bell. It was the most reassuring feeling Delta could remember, and he was content for it to be his last, and only memory.

**Author's Note:**

> I should stop writing like this but please give me ur opinions here or on Tumblr @barefootcosplayer


End file.
